The Legend of the Locksburg Vampire

“Vampire,” eked Melissa, a mousy bespectacled 10th grader standing before her dead-silent English class. “The dictionary defines vampire as the reanimated body of a dead person. A vampire is characterized by its enlarged canine teeth and its thirst for the blood of the living.”

Gordon, her book report partner, was slouched on a stool next to her clutching a flashlight and a silver crucifix.

“This is a silver crucifix,” Gordon continued, holding it out for the class to see. “If you touch a vampire with a silver crucifix, it will burn a hole right through the skin.” He touched it to the back of Melissa's neck, who pursed her lips and made a pshhhhh sound.

Mr. Render, the lanky pale-faced English teacher with eyes the color of frozen blue ice, sat at the back of the classroom and peered onto this spectacle hellishly. That was the seventh book report he sat through about vampires, and they all consisted of dry recitations of the same facts over and over again. Not that he could blame the students at Locksburg High for being fascinated with vampires; after all, the entire town of Locksburg was utterly obsessed with them particularly at that time of year as the annual Autumn Vampire Festival was quickly approaching. But at least Mr. Render could expect his students to write book reports that didn't all start out with that same godforsaken dictionary definition.

“This is garlic,” Melissa continued, removing a bulb from her pocket. “Vampires do not like garlic.” She held it under Gordon's nose who grimaced cartoonishly and pushed it away from him.

Mr. Render rolled his eyes and the sour expression on his face intensified. He ran his trembling and freakishly thin fingers through his enormous head of hair, which sat on his scalp like a bulbous cushion that always bounced back to its original shape no matter what he did to it. He started to breathe heavily, which alerted a few students sitting nearby that something was about to erupt within him. He was well-known around that school for his fit conniptions.

“Also, vampires are allergic to the sun,” Gordon explained, flicking on the flashlight he had in his hand and shining it an inch away from Melissa's nose.

“No, don't shine the sun at me!” Melissa said, flopping her arms by her side. “I'm allergic!”

Mr. Render couldn't take it any longer. He violently stood up from his chair; the earsplitting screeching sound it made as it slid against the linoleum tiles prompted all his students to react immediately by covering their ears. He extended a bony and unsteady index finger at Melissa and Gordon who looked back at him frozen and wide-eyed.

“Don't say another word!” he hollered with tiny torpedoes of spit flying out of his mouth. He frantically stormed toward them, making broad strides with his toothpick legs, until his skinny 6'-6'' frame towered over them like a monstrous broomstick. He gave them a glare of such intensity it was as though he were trying to burn laser holes in their foreheads with his eyes. Their faces were petrified and ghostly white. They weren't breathing.

“Go back to your seats,” he barked at them violently. They had to take a few moments to remember how to move their limbs, but as soon as they did, they hurriedly scrambled to their desks.

With his head thrown back and his mouth wide open, the pale English teacher faced his students and roared like a lion. He spent the next few minutes breathing like a crazed dog, and then decided the time was right to deliver an inspiring speech.

“Did any of you actually read your books?” he said. His eyes scanned frantically across the sea of two dozen students, which was nothing but stunned frozen silence. “Children, listen to me. Reading is not about physically opening your books and studying words. Reading is about letting these words open your minds to different ideas and experiences. After reading a vampire novel, it is not enough to just to say that vampires are this and vampires are that. Books aren't just lists of facts.”

Mr. Render snatched a dusty hardcover book from the hands of a boy who had the misfortune of sitting in the front row, center.

“Steven, you read Dracula, correct?” Mr. Render said to the boy as he held the front cover inches in front of his nose. Steven responded by shyly nodding his head and sinking into his seat a bit.

“Now, tell me Steven,” Mr. Render continued, “how did Dracula make you feel?” He then gave Steven a crooked-toothed grin that was so huge that it took up much of the surface area of his bone-thin face.

“Scared, I guess,” Steven eked after a few seconds of unsettling silence. He wasn't sure if he answered that more to satisfy the question at hand or because that was how the teacher was making him feel.

“Is that all you have to say to me?” Mr. Render responded sternly, looking at him with raised eyebrows.

Steven, petrified, had no clue what to say. Mr. Render stood upright, crossed his arms, and tapped his foot with impatience. Steven's voice cracked a few times before managing to get something to squeak out of his mouth.

“Um, very scared,” he said in such a way that it sounded like he was asking a question.

Steven knew immediately he answered that poorly, and he covered his face with his arms as though he were expecting to be assailed with a punch on the jaw.

However, all Mr. Render did was let out a frustrated growl and roll his eyes. He slouched his shoulders, buried his defeated looking face into his palms, and cried a little. Only after a few seconds of such despair, he unburied his face to reveal a bright, wide-eyed expression that looked as though he just experienced a religious awakening. He slammed the dusty book on Steven's desk, which sent up a thick, floury cloud of particulates into the air that settled noticeably into Steven's brown hair.

“Steven!” Mr. Render exclaimed, brushing the dust out of the Steven's hair and grabbing his shoulders to hoist him upright. He slapped both his hands on Steven's desk and kept them there for awhile. Steven saw something faintly printed on the back of Mr. Render's hand that looked a bit like a faded ink stamp. He wasn't able to get a closer look at it before Mr. Render's icy cold stare reclaimed his attention.

“When Jonathan Harker first set his eyes upon Count Dracula's crumbled castle, did you not feel butterflies in your stomach as though to anticipate the sinister things to come?” the teacher spat with a rapid-fire tongue.

“Um, I guess so,” Steven responded uncertainly. Before he could elaborate on that answer, Mr. Render suddenly grabbed hold of his sweater, jolted him, and started screaming in his face. His breath smelled of Lucky Charms.

“When Jonathan Harker first met the three brides, did you not feel a sour sensation in the pit of your stomach knowing that he was up to something vile and contemptible?”

“Sure,” Steven agreed, nodding rapidly, hoping that it would prompt the English teacher to let go of his sweater, but it only seemed to make him tighten his grip.

“And when Jonathan Harker escaped Dracula's castle with only an inch of his life, did you not feel so relieved and satisfied, it was as if it were you who barely made it out alive?” he screamed so loudly that his voice could be heard in every room of the school including even the cellar where the rats were sleeping.

“Yeah, all of that,” Steven accepted with a nervous laugh.

Mr. Render regained that bright beaming smile of his and let go of Steven's sweater, which was left stretched-out and mangled where his hands had been gripping.

Steven embarrassingly darted his eyes around the classroom to see if anyone was looking at him, but he saw that most of the kids were intensely focused on Mr. Render with marked expressions of fear and fascination in their eyes. Steven was new to the little town of Lockburg, and he was relieved to discover that he wasn't the only person who thought Mr. Render's behavior was odd.

By that time, Mr. Render was dancing with himself around the classroom with steps so nimble and light-footed that it looked as though he were partially being supported by an invisible string dangling from the ceiling.

“You see, kids? That is the power of reading,” Mr. Render continued, leaping agilely from foot to foot. “All you have to do is just sit back and let the words soak through your minds. It's easy! Anyone can do it! Even Mr. Jangles!”

Mr. Jangles was a fuzzy toy monkey he had placed on the window sill next to a potted Persian violet.

With a twinkle in his eye, Mr. Render waved his arms around limberly like a seasoned figure skater, and he continued to dance about the classroom, wafting gingerly up and down the aisles.

“Now, I want each and every one of you to take your books back home tonight, and you have one week to bring me a fresh new report,” he sang as he artfully kicked the air and spun around.

In any of these students' other classes, such an announcement would have been met with a chorus of disgusted disapproval, but this was English class with Mr. Render, and they wouldn't dare.

“It's important to me, children, that you give these books another chance to unlock your imaginations,” he continued with his arms arched up in the air like a prima ballerina. “Your imaginations certainly aren't going to unlock themselves. So, let's give it a proper try!”

Then suddenly, there was a sharp rap on the classroom door. It startled Mr. Render, who let out a nervous, high-pitched squealing noise. There was someone with a huge wrinkly face and a pair of soft brown eyes peering at him through the small square window on the door.

The mere sight of those eyes made Mr. Render squeal once more, louder that time. The door slowly began to creep open, and he nervously clasped his hands together and brought them to his face. He squealed a third time, then with considerably more despair, and sprinted to the back of the classroom, kicking his knees high into the air with each rapid step. He flung open the closet, and bolted inside of it.

The man standing at the classroom door was Mr. Neal, the vice principal of the school. His physical shape and motor skills were reminiscent of a beached walrus', and it looked as though he had a permanent scowl etched upon his wrinkly and puffy face. His eyes were so deeply set that they looked like they were the buttons on an overstuffed pillow. He was chomping a carrot in his mouth as though it were a cigar. The carrot was full-sized and peeled, and it was so heavily polished that it reflected light.

“Jules,” barked the man with a rough gravelly voice. He took a puff of the carrot.

“Hold on now,” the English teacher cried tensely, out of view in the closet. He was clamoring and rustling things. “I'll be just one minute!”

“What's with this tomfoolery?” Mr. Neal croaked taking the carrot out of his mouth and gripping it between his first two fingers and his thumb. “I haven't got all day.” That prompted even louder clamoring and rustling in the back closet. Something that sounded like delicate porcelain was knocked over and shattered on the floor.

“Almost there!” cried the flustered English teacher.

Then, the closet door slammed shut. Mr. Render stood unflinchingly at the back of the classroom with wide eyes and a fully toothed smile. He had haphazardly applied thick white powder everywhere across his face including his lips and his hairline making him look rather like a zombie from a cheap horror flick from the '50s. He coughed once through his nose without managing to blink or move his lips.

“Yes, vice principal Neal,” Mr. Render said politely in a high-pitched voice trying to pretend that there was nothing out-of-the-ordinary. “Do you require my assistance?”

“Teachers called my office and said there was yelling in here,” Mr. Neal said. He tapped the end of his carrot with his pinky finger, flicking away nonexistent ashes.

“Yelling? Whatever do they mean, Mr. Neal?” Mr. Render said innocently, leaning his hand against a chair. The chair proved to be unstable, and he had to scramble to keep it from toppling over. “There is nothing going on in here except everyday, ordinary chatter. Isn't that right, children?”

The children offered no response.

“Well,” Mr. Neal said, squinting suspiciously and never breaking eye contact with Mr. Render. He flashed a counterfeit smile at him before resuming that resident scowling expression. He chomped the carrot once again like a cigar and talked out of the side of his mouth. “See that I don't have to drag myself in here again. It bothers me.”

With that, Mr. Neal sluggishly turned around his walrus-shaped body to waddle out of the room.

“Yes, Mr. Neal!” the English teacher called after the slowly moving vice principal. “You don't have to worry about anything, Mr. Neal! Everything is perfectly normal in here!” When Mr. Neal closed the door and was out of sight, Mr. Render brought his fingernails up to his mouth and worriedly chewed on them.

He muttered quietly to himself, and he would continue doing that for the rest of the class period.

Steven and his book report partner, Kevin Cannery, hadn't been given the chance to deliver their book reports that day, and Steven supposed that was for the best. Truth be told, their book reports weren't a whole lot different from the ill-fated Melissa's and Gordon's, except they delved into a little greater detail about how vampires could sometimes turn into bats.

Steven then directed his attention to the front of his sweater, which he saw was so disastrously stretched where Mr. Render had grabbed a hold of it earlier that it looked like he had two mangled bosoms.

He grimaced sourly and groaned. That was his favorite sweater. He had it since two Christmases ago, and he took great care of it. He never spilled anything on it, he never stretched out the neck hole, and he never, ever ironed it, just as instructed by the tag. Surely, an ordinary person might have looked upon that sweater and wondered what he found so special about it. They might have even gone so far as to criticize the sweater for merely being one color: navy blue. However, that was sweater that could only come once in a lifetime. It was soft, it was warm, and it made him look fantastic. It was a friend. It fit perfectly on him: it was neither too small nor too large, and it didn't bulge in any unnatural places, not even around the biceps. It even somehow managed to transform his rather ostrich-esque neck into something more appropriate of a Greek god: thick and majestic. That sweater had been magic. But not any longer.

Steven tried the best he could to iron those mangled sweater bosoms out with the palms of his hands, but it was of no avail. That sweater would never be the same. Farewell, sweet sweater.

Not only was his favorite sweater in the world ruined, he wore it that day in hopes of impressing a girl named Brigitte who he was scheduled to have lunch with in the cafeteria. She was vice president of the All Things That Glitter Club, a group that met every Thursday after school, and Steven was the treasurer. He told her there was a sensitive financial matter he wanted to discuss with her over lunch. However, in truth, it wasn't all that sensitive; he really just wanted to have lunch with her.

Then, Kevin interrupted Steven from his thoughts.

“I guess there's always next year to learn English,” Kevin said sardonically with a humph and shaking his shaved-bald head from side-to-side. He turned to look at Mr. Render who was still muttering away to himself at the back of the classroom. “I can't believe my tax dollars are going toward that freak's paycheck. This community deserves better than that. I deserve better than that.”

Steven chose to say nothing back to Kevin. Steven might not have been too terribly wild about Mr. Render's teaching style, and he certainly wasn't too happy with the way the teacher treated his students' sweaters, but that was hardly an excuse to act like a boor. Kevin always acted like a boor.